Reviews

Here's the thing: this is not a book, in the normal sense, but it should be studied carefully, nonetheless. This is, from what has been suggested around the internet, the basic guide that's given to new hires at Valve, a well established and successful entertainment (i.e., games) software company (though, they are apparently about to break out of just being a software company). It describes the somewhat unique structure Valve uses for its company hierarchy, direction and community. I won't give away and spoilers by describing how Valve works (come on, it's talked about all over the place, anyway!), but I admire their approach and plan to keep a close eye on their longterm success (they've already been around since 1996, so you could say they've already accomplished success). If you want to get ideas about how a non-traditionally structured company can work, this is one to read and learn from. It probably won't work everywhere (I'm not sure if a very large company could do this, for instance), but that's really a matter for debate and, ideally, trial in the real world.

More...